


Pretty Lies and Ugly Truths

by gryffindored



Category: The Folk of the Air - Holly Black
Genre: Angst, F/M, Hate Sex, Porn with Feelings, Shameless Smut, Throne Sex, because tell me that cardan wouldnt want to dick down jude w her crown, crown sex, post-TWK, twk spoilers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-29
Updated: 2019-01-29
Packaged: 2019-10-18 23:33:05
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,827
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17590508
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/gryffindored/pseuds/gryffindored
Summary: POST-TWK ; CONTAINS SPOILERS FOR THE WICKED KING! Read at your own discretion! ** Description in Fic Notes ** I hope you enjoy - it's my first time writing for this fandom/this ship! Hopefully not the last time, as I had heaps of fun doing this.





	Pretty Lies and Ugly Truths

**Author's Note:**

> Jude is back in Elfhame after months being exiled to the mortal world, only to find herself feeling humiliated and - angry. Very angry. The thing about being angry at Cardan, though, is that it's never quite as it seems.

**pretty lies & ugly truths ; **

* * *

 

“ _Are —“_

If the clack of her heels against tiled floors didn’t make Jude Duarte feel powerful, then the blade in hand certainly did.

“ _You_  —“

Or perhaps it was the crown, sitting atop her head surrounded by intricate plaits coiled and twisted, that provided the thrill of power.

“ _Kidding_  —“

She wasn’t used to the foreign weight of it, neither figurative nor literal, but in her rampage across the now-empty throne room she didn’t even stumble.

“ _Me_.”

No, she realized. It wasn’t the crown. It wasn’t the shoes. Not even the blade, which had been abandoned in her fury and thus clattered to the floor with a deafening thud.

“ _I hate you_ ,” she seethed for what was probably around the thousandth time just that month.

A hand wrapped itself around her dear husband’s neck, thumb pressed tight against the column of his throat, and Jude decided that none of those aforementioned outside sources contributed to the overwhelming feeling of power as much as her own bare hands and the sheer force of her singleminded will.

“Wife.”

His voice managed to maintain its low and silky texture despite her attempts to cut into his air supply. Her other hand jumped to his throat, both thumbs working their target as her heart beat wildly within the confines of her chest.

“You did that on purpose,” she accused in a wild fury. “Admit it.”

“I can not — admit much with — your hands —“ he choked out.

Pleased by his evident struggle, Jude released him. She didn’t move away however; his coal eyes flared when she lunged closer. She all but caged him into his throne with her arms as the bars, hands propped against the ornate chair’s back on either side of his head. The plush, cushiony velvet felt too nice by far against the callouses of her palms.

“Admit it,” Jude hissed, her face so close to his that anyone passing might simply assume a moment of intimacy between the King and his Queen.

“Admit what, dear wife?”

“That you brought me back here just to humiliate me. That you arranged all that to build me up as nothing more but a poor, pathetic mortal.”

The crown upon her head tipped forward slightly, serving only as a reminder of hours prior: a coronation fit for a fool. The inhuman laughter had echoed throughout the throne room then and rang deafening in her ears now. It was as if they’d taken the Queen of Mirth revelry to a higher, more elaborate scale. More Faerie games designed to get under her skin.

She looked the part of Queen of Elfhame, this time.

Her dress looked crafted from stars themselves, set into a gossamer black canvas that hung from her curves. It glistened and glittered with each step she took, winking constantly in the lights. Sleek black ribbons were entwined into the braids woven atop her head, peeking through walnut curls that cascaded over her shoulders. Delicate horns were crafted of hair and ribbon and bejeweled, creating a frame of sorts for the crown that fit snug atop her head.

She’d be lying if she said her breath didn’t catch when she saw the crown in Cardan’s hands. It wasn’t quite twin to his own, but indeed appeared cut from the same cloth. Silver and gold and bronze twined together, fashioned into severe branches. Crystalline jewels sparkled like moonlight, or maybe like snowfall; something entirely natural and magical all at once.

It was beautiful. It was frightening. It was hers.

She truly looked a queen. Still, it didn’t prevent the murmurs and jeers and blatant laughter that surrounded her and set her body on fire from the inside out in the worst way possible. She felt like she was the butt of a joke. No one took her seriously. Even as they watched the High King take her hand and lead her to a throne that had been fashioned for her; even as they heard Cardan pronounce her Queen of Elfhame; even as he called her his wife in front of the masses. None of it mattered.

He humiliated her in the worst way: with truth, and nothing but.

Because she was all those things. She, Jude Duarte, their mortal rule, their Queen, the wife to the High King.

And yet, she may as well have been Queen of Nothing.

His silence grated on her as she hovered over him, breathing heavily, chest panting with the frustration and embarrassment that prickled across her skin and settled deep in her soul.

“I admit,” Cardan said finally, a hand coming up to tuck an ebony ribbon behind her ear, “that I arranged this coronation knowing full well our subjects would think you a joke.”

She bared her teeth at him like the feral animal she was not; he simply lay his palm flat against her cheek. Unafraid. His skin was cool to the touch, smooth. This close, she was able to study his face. There was a new sort of wisdom in his eyes. Certainly in the time since she betrayed him and put him on this very throne, he’d grown into the role. He looked the part more often than not. His chin held high, shoulders back, steps assured: Cardan Greenbriar was more the High King than she ever imagined he could be.

“You let them laugh at me,” she accused.

“Yes.”

“You humiliated me.”

“It would appear so.”

“ _I hate you_ ,” she growled.

“Tell me again how much, my darling Jude,” he said, his voice low and eyes heavy.

Jude had half a mind to smack the desire straight off his face, but instead pushed herself off from the back of his throne with every intention to retire to her chambers. She’d figure this out after getting some rest.

Before she could even take a full step, his hand caught her wrist and she found her body twisting to face him again. The momentum of the tug jostled the crown on her head, hair ribbons falling in her face. She tried to catch herself in a flurry of flailing limbs, but the hands that she’d hoped would find purchase against the back of his chair were instead planted firmly against his chest.

He was lucky she didn’t knee him in the groin in the process.

Cardan’s gaze scorched her face; she knew her cheeks were flushed and her heart beat fast against her chest, rising and falling with heavy, quick breaths. She wanted to slay her own traitorous body.

“Jude,” he said, foreign softness tainting his tongue.

Her name sounded a prayer when he said it like that, spoken with a reverence she didn’t know he was capable of. It was startling, really, and the shock of it was enough to loose a brief bit of tension in her body. He must’ve felt the slackening of her figure as it hovered over him, because he used that moment to slide a hand to the base of her spine and hold her close. She blinked, propped upon his lap with her knees on either side of his thighs. Jude opened her mouth to speak but he continued before she could manage a word.

“They’re never going to want you,” he said with all the blunt ease only a faerie could manage. “They’ll never accept you as you are.”

“As I am?” she spat out harshly, coming back to her senses. She tightened against him, but his hands kept her caged in. “And what’s that?  _Mortal_?” The word felt dirty in her mouth, a burden and a curse no matter how she spun it.

“Mortal,” he agreed, a hand dancing up her spine. The dress she wore was cut low in the back so it wasn’t long before skin met skin. She couldn’t keep her brain from flashing back to the other times his hands ran fiery paths across her skin and a shiver passed over her. “They see a mortal girl who slept her way into a crown.”

“That’s not —”

“Prove yourself, Jude.” His hands came up to adjust the crown on her head, straightening the ornate metal workings so it sat proudly once again. Long, slender fingers brushed through the hair that fell around her shoulders. The action was decidedly intimate. His dark eyes studied her with an intensity she felt inclined to shy away from, but Jude forced herself to remain still.

How did he possess the ability to unwind her with such ease? Had all her defenses fallen in her time away?

“We showed them you look every inch a Queen, mortal or otherwise. The spectacle doesn’t hold near enough weight as is needed to convince them of your strength.” His hands trailed down her arms, featherlight touches that left goosebumps in their wake. “What I gave to you is an opportunity now to prove yourself. Make fools of them each, Jude.” His eyes sank to her heaving chest before panning back slowly up to her eyes, though not before lingering on her lips. “They will wish they never once laughed.”

His voice was like a glamour all its own, lulling her into security that frightened her. What could that mean? Prove herself. She’d spent her entire damn life doing just that. The second she was brought to Faerie it had been one trial after another. One jeer, one prank, one intimidation after another. What did Cardan think she’d been doing all these years? If anything, she needed to prove herself to  _him_. He clearly thought so little —

“And what of you, husband?” she said in a sickly sweet voice, her hand jumping to his throat in a flash. If he was surprised by the action, he didn’t show it. “What fool are you, my king, to have been tricked by a mortal?” Jude brought herself closer, her hips shifting forward as she tilted her face to his. His body seemed to tense with heat. “What retribution can I administer against the laughs from you?”

She tightened her hand on his throat, watching as the intensity grew in his face. Cardan’s lips parted ever slightly, and she expected protest to spill from that pretty mouth of his. It never came, though. Jude took advantage of the silence, rising on her knees so her height was at a further advantage. She pressed her legs tight against him as the hand not occupied with his neck found purchase in the curling locks of raven hair. She tugged back so that his face was raised to hers.

The bastard was smirking.

“You took permanent residence in my dreams while you were gone, Jude,” Cardan managed. “Every sleep I had was occupied with your face. Indeed, often with your hands wielding some weapon or another.” At that, she desired a blade back in her possession.

His hands slid from her back down the curve of her bottom, moving along her thighs. The heat of his palms cut through the diaphanous skirt of her gown, the material far too thin to block out the feeling of his touches. She clutched her hand deeper in his hair while that at his throat slackened with a quiver as his fingers traveled back up her body. He pressed her against his torso; she could feel his beating heart against body where they lined up.

  
What was she doing back here?

“I wanted you to be with me. You are my wife.”

“ _Enough.”_

“I had to do it, Jude,” Cardan pressed. “There was little else I could have decreed that would have yielded a result apart from death. Regardless of who you are to me, justice was required.”

The earnestness in his words and the knowledge that he couldn’t lie caused her stomach to twist into knots. She didn’t want to think about it. Not about  _who she was to him,_ nor his schemes that shocked and betrayed. Jude found herself not wanting to think about much of  _anything_ , for that matter.

“Shut up,” she hissed.

“You do not command me any longer,” he reminded, voice longing.

“Kiss me.”

“What?” he asked, and she couldn’t help but feel pleased that she’d shocked him. She’d gone off script, after all. It was never Jude asking for kisses, for secret shared breaths and moments where the space between them disappeared into electric nonexistence.

“I said —  _kiss me_.”

So she did.

Or perhaps he did.

Somewhere within the sentence, their mouths came crashing together. She supposed it didn’t matter which way it started, just that it had.

Jude sank back down from her knees, no longer raised above him. Cardan took advantage of her being sat on his lap, winding his hands down to hips and urging her forward. She gasped into his mouth at the friction of the movement, a spark starting in her spine and working its way through her blood.

  
They were all teeth and tongues, a firestarter kind of kiss that had her breathing heavily and sparsely. She reveled in the feel of his body against her, startled by the forbidden familiarity of his touches.  _No thinking_ , she reminded herself, and closed herself off to anything that wasn’t this singular moment.

Her arms wove around his neck, tangling them together further than they had already been. Could Cardan feel how fast her heart beat, or the way her body shook in response? Jude nipped hard at his lower lip while his own hands somehow managed to find their way beneath her skirts. His smooth palms against the expanse of her calf, then thigh elicited a breathy moan as she arched her body with an instinctual desire, her heat aching for his fingers.

“Patience, Jude,” he muttered against her lips before his mouth covered hers again before she could protest that they were in a rather public throne room and was patience really of virtue here?

Cardan’s arms wound tight around her back, bracing her against him with a surprising strength as he flipped her gently beneath him. Jude let out a gasp of shock when her back hit the plush throne. He hovered near above her, a knee propped up between her legs, his fingers working with deft movements to unlace his shirt while his tongue and lips paved a fiery path down the column of her throat. He parted only brief enough to shed the frilly shirt from his body, and her darkened eyes scanned the planes of his taut chest and stomach. It was sight enough to quicken her breath, her hands shaking slightly as she reached out to touch him.

He caught her hand in his, fingers twining over her own and guiding her palm up, up, finally to his mouth where he kissed the inside of her wrist once, twice, a third time to her fingertips — painting her with an intimacy that tugged strangely at her heart.

“Cardan —” she breathed, hating how shaky and uncertain her own voice sounded.

“I missed you,” he whispered, and she caught a flash of fear in his eyes at the admittance.

She hadn’t time to ask after it, however, before he was kneeling before her. He slid her shoes from her feet before traveling his hands from her ankles, brushing her knees, slowing over her thighs. Swollen berry lips parted and chest rising heavily, Jude watched, enraptured. Her dress was pushed up around her waist in the process, something she was thankful when Cardan’s lips followed the path of his hands.

The sight of his head between her legs as he kneeled in front of her was almost too much to bear. He paused to slide her knickers down the length of her legs, his eyes raised to study her face. She whimpered when he hoisted her knees over his shoulders and her head lolled to the side when he finally lay his mouth to the spot where she ached most for him.

His fingertips pressed hard against her hips as he held her to him, his tongue working slow at first as if to tease her. It was working, certainly, her heart racing far too fast for any poor mortal as she desired something deeper, faster,  _more_. She dug her heels into his back, trying to resist the urge to buck her hips up. As if sensing her impatience, his hands held her harder, pressing her down against the velvet cushion.

“ _Cardan_ ,” she moaned, voice laced with desire.

A finger replaced his tongue, sliding into her heat with ease. He planted a wet caress to the side of her thigh before nipping the soft skin there. A high pitched noise left her lips, and he rewarded her with a second digit entering between her lips.

“Did you miss me, Jude?” he asked, his voice like gravel on her skin, his teeth grazing her thigh again.

“No,” she said quickly. A lie, perhaps? Or maybe it was more complicated than that. She wasn’t in the market for complicated thoughts at the moment, not with his fingers thrusting and curling inside of her.

And as if knowing her response for what it was, a non-truth, he rose to his full height. Her legs slipped from his shoulders and she moaned at the change in angle as his fingers continued to work their ministrations. He kissed the spot between her breasts, his mouth moving heatedly up her neck and to her ear. She shivered at the puff of breath that was released there.

“Did you miss me?” he asked again, the low timbre of his voice hitting her very core.

Jude wasn’t sure when her hand had joined his between her legs, but her fingers wrapped around his wrist and she writhed her hips, her mouth parted as another “ _No_ ” escaped in a breathy moan.

Cardan slipped a third finger into her heat, and the change in pressure was heavenly enough that she jerked forward, her arm coming around his shoulders and holding onto him as if he were the last lifeline in this terrifying, twisted life she led. She rolled against his hand, eager and needing and unthinking. In a final crash, she clenched around his fingers, body shaking as she allowed the pleasure to wash over her in tumultuous waves.

He gathered her dress where it was bunched at the waist, his hands sliding to tie at the small of her back and unlacing it enough so that he could slide the gown up over her head. He was careful of the crown that sat atop her head, though the dress didn’t receive the same treatment and was instead tossed aside with no care for whether it snagged or caught on anything.

Jude didn’t care.

Their eyes met, equally heavy and desirous in the golden light of the throne room. His gaze roamed her body and she was surprised by how unaffected by embarrassment she was at the intensity. She slouched bare on his throne, and Cardan seemed positively thrilled by the notion.

He breathed heavily as his hands fell to his laces. She watched, entranced, as he pushed his breeches down his legs. It wasn’t the first time he’d been exposed to her, nor she to him, yet the effect was as heady as ever. She was frozen still, save for her panting breaths that echoed his own. His tail flicked behind him, betraying impatience before coiling around her calf. She shuddered.

Broken from her own spell, she lifted her hands to the crown at her head, making to remove it.

“Leave it,” he breathed. His hands caught her wrists and lowered her hands from the ornate headpiece that sat between unkempt braids. She looked curiously at him, question in her eyes. “You look just like in my dreams,” he added, by way of explanation.

“Oh,” she breathed lamely.

He cupped her cheeks with a gentle touch, kissing her soft on the lips. His fingers slid to the back of her neck, catching on waves of hair in the process. She was too stunned to do much other than kiss him softly back. It was in complete contrast to earlier.

He tugged her to her feet, and he stepped out of his trousers that had pooled at his angles, feet already bare having ditched his pointed silver shoes much earlier on. With a quick turn, he was sat on the throne and he pulled her to straddle him.

She rubbed against him, luxuriating in the feel of his hard length straining beneath her. He groaned at the friction she created, his lids falling heavily in response. The black-tipped tail flicked against her back with slow sweeps eliciting shivers in their wake. She kissed him harder, desiring more. Desiring him. Desiring —

“I want you,” he said. “My Jude. My wife. My queen.”

Jude nodded, moving to kiss him again but he pulled back and put a finger to her lips in pause.

“Say it.” A request, his body shaking under her.

“Yes,” she breathed. An answer to earlier questions, perhaps. Her voice shook even as she added, “I want you.”

“Again,” Cardan pleaded as she reached between their bodies.

She wrapped her fingers around him, watching his eyes darken in pleasure as she applied her own ministrations to his throbbing length. His palms left her hair, dropping to the small of her back, fingertips digging into the soft skin there. He groaned as she quickened her motions, her hand slick with his desire.

“ _I want you_ ,” she said, rising to her knees and angling his cock at her entrance. Her body quaked in the anticipation, heat pulsing heavy in her core. She stared down, watching as she slid over him to join their bodies.

“ _Jude.”_

Neither moved for a moment, reveling in the feeling that they created together within a world of passionate harmony. He dropped his forehead to her shoulder, his body trembling. It was perhaps the most vulnerable, intimate thing she’d ever witnessed and all the truths she didn’t say, wouldn’t say, couldn’t decipher got caught in her throat. She wrapped her arms tight around his shoulders, holding him to her. Her fingers curled in the soft curls at the nape of his neck and his mouth lavished her collarbone with sloppy kisses.

She rolled her hips, testing the waters with a tentative air. A low, quiet moan spilled from her lips and she did it again, and again. The pressure within her was unlike anything she’d ever felt before, heat rising in her body with incredible force.

“I shouldn’t have come back —” she whispered, the words slipping out without a single thought. He raised his head to look at her before swallowing her statement in a kiss and a breath. “I shouldn’t have —” she tried again, and he nipped at her ear.

“Tell me all your pretty lies, Jude,” he whispered, thrusting his hips beneath her.

“It’s not a lie,” she shuddered, fingers grasping onto his shoulders as she met his next movement with a deep moan.

“You belong beside me.”

“Cardan,” she warned.

His hands reached her hips and she braced herself with one hand against the back of the throne while her other held onto his shoulder, fingernails digging crescent moons upon his smooth, creamy skin.

Jude moved over him with more fervor, as if she could fuck his words from existence. She couldn’t hear those things, didn’t want to. She’d gotten her hopes mixed up with reality and desire and lost so much already. Months in the mortal realm couldn’t wipe away that betrayal. She didn’t know her next move, and that didn’t frighten her nearly as much as not knowing Cardan’s.

The anger she’d felt earlier bubbled back to the surface of her emotions. She couldn’t trust his truths, the words he managed to wield like shiny new weapons. The worst of it was that he believed the things that came out of his mouth. Somehow, for some reason, he truly believed she belonged in a crown at his side. But why?

  
The humiliation, the embarrassment, the sound of the court’s laughter as they stared at her during the coronation —

She dug her fingernails deeper yet, her mouth crashing against his and tugging his lower lip between teeth. A metallic taste tinted with something almost flowery and decidedly Cardan hit her tongue and she knew she’d drawn blood. It pleased her, spurning her on and she rode him harder, faster, licking the taste of him off her lips.

“ _I hate you_ ,” she panted. While those words sometimes hid an array of deeper emotions, in that moment, as the sounds of their bodies slapping together and his groans filled her ears and her own moans echoed throughout, Jude knew they were a perfect truth.  _Tell me your lies_ , he’d asked, but she gave him entire honesty.

She hated not knowing his intentions. She hated that she couldn’t trust him, never truly did. She hated that — she wanted to believe it all. She’d lost so much her entire life, given up whole parts of herself to become someone that would fit into this world of tricks and fears. Was it so much that she wanted to be able to let down her guard just once, to stop fighting, to stop feeling so much anger?

“Show me how much you hate me, Jude,” he prompted, voice guttural.

“ _Shut up, Cardan_ ,” she hissed, placing a palm over his mouth and thus giving him little choice but to obey the command. Her other hand met his throat yet again, applying pressure enough that she supposed he might grow lightheaded though avoid harming him.

He growled, his tail tightening against her thigh, no longer flicking languid strokes in pleasure but growing taut in a climax. She felt it herself building inside, sounds pouring from her mouth as she thrust his length deeper into him, her movements now shallower and quicker and harder than they’d been until now. His own hips bucked up with intent, his palms holding her close and driving her deeper atop his cock.

She slipped her palm away from his mouth, fingers sliding to the back of his hair, tugging into the locks as she kissed the metallic taste of him so that she’d not be tempted to cry out his name as she reached her climax in one crashing moment. He hadn’t the same restraint, and her name was like a mantra as he came inside her, “ _JudeJudeJude.”_

Her vision swam and she let out a whimpering moan as her body collapsed against his, spent. Her skin was sticky with sweat, walnut curls plastered against her neck and back. Cardan seemed not to mind as he wound his arms around her, keeping her against him as they both rode their final waves. She slouched into him, all tension gone from her limp figure.

“How do you not see it?” he whispered after their hearts began to slow back to normal, low enough that she nearly didn’t catch it.

Jude lifted her head to meet his eyes, trying to read him. She kept expression from her face as she shivered, pulling herself out of his arms and separating them with a sense of finality. He watched her move, his lean form stretched across the throne having no shame at his nudity. She noticed his lips to be painted red from her ministrations, bruises and crescent cuts along his shoulders.

She reached for her gown, slipping it back on in a hurry. The shoulder straps were twisted, one of the layers of black skirt caught in on itself. Her hair was a complete mess, no longer arranged in intricate braids and twists but rather collapsed and fallen and frizzed. She looked every bit the mess she felt, and nothing of the Queen she fancied herself at the start of this day.

“See what, Cardan?” she asked, wiping her mouth on her palm. She came away with blood — his, she presumed. She removed the crown from her head, her shoulders rising in a deep breath as though the weight of the world had been lifted from her. “Don’t you get it? This is all a game.” She threw her arms out to either side in a sweeping gesture encapsulating the whole of the throne room. “I don’t even know who’s playing anymore.” She took several steps until she stood at her shoes, slipping her toes back into them. “We’re just pawns to one another.” She paused, the crown dangling from her fingers at her side as she fixed him with a heavy stare full of too much emotion for even herself to decipher. “It’s time to cut the puppet strings, King.”

She turned on her heel, crossing the expansive throne room in silence save for the clacking of her shoes against the floors. Budding flowers settled in corners and vines crept up the walls — foliage that wasn’t there before. She resisted the urge to look back at Cardan, determined to keep any upper hand possible in a world where words were twisted and meanings hidden.


End file.
